


The Popularization of Soccer

by nahco3



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Community: cornerflag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahco3/pseuds/nahco3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The US gets eliminated from the World Cup and life goes on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Popularization of Soccer

**Author's Note:**

> written for cornerflag, and originally posted there.

After they lose to Ghana, Landon remembers sitting on the bench, hands over his face so he can cry without letting anyone see. He keeps thinking, please, we just needed more time, just one more minute. Please. He sits like that, immobile, until someone pulls him to his feet and pushes him toward the locker room. No one makes eye contact with him in the locker room, and Landon feels overwhelmed by his failures. He thinks, it’s over and it’s my fault.

He says as much to Tim, that night. He’s lying on Tim’s bed in their hotel, watching him pack. Tim packs methodically, shoes on the bottom of his bag, shirts folded carefully. His hands are very large, and they sometimes shake a little bit. Landon likes watching Tim, has made a habit over the years. Usually it distracts him. Tonight, it makes his chest clench with something like fear.

“Don’t you worry we’ll never come back?” he asks, because that’s all he can think about. Tim doesn’t reply, keeps packing. Landon keeps talking. “Like, not to South Africa, but to the World Cup.” He pauses again, continues. “It seems so fucking pointless. Win the group, get eliminated anyway.” He doesn’t mention that he blames himself; it seems impossible to him to blame Tim. Tim unfolds and refolds a t-shirt, making the creases sharp.

“You’ll be back,” Tim says, without looking up. “Trust me.”

Landon isn’t willing to hear the warning in that, the foreshadowing to an inevitable end. He wants something to hope for, some faith in a faithless time, and so he takes that instead.

\--

Landon comes back to the States, muddled and jet-lagged. He’s a guest on Jon Stewart (“You guys had a great Cup,” Jon tells him before the show, and Landon’s tongue-tied, can’t think of a lie fast enough to respond). He takes a red eye back to LA and he’s practicing with the Galaxy the next morning.

When he gets home, he opens all the windows to get rid of the musty emptiness that settled into the house while he was gone. But he’s forgotten it’s summer, and he has to shut the windows again as the temperature climbs and climbs, triple digits and not looking back. He lies on top of his sheets, sweat drying on his skin, trying to fall asleep. He keeps listening for the sounds of video games coming from the next room or loud voices in the hallway. It’s quiet.

When he wakes up it’s still dark out. He eats breakfast by himself, so fucking lonely he has trouble breathing.

Tim calls him a few days later. They’re playing the Sounders later that day - Landon’s sitting on his hotel bed, watching Sports Center.

“How’s sunny Los Angeles?”

“Great, except for the fact that I’m in Seattle. How’s vacation, asshole?”

“Incredible.” Landon tries to picture Tim - if he’s standing in his kitchen or sitting on his couch or what. It’s weird, talking to Tim without seeing his face. Landon likes the way the skin around Tim’s eyes crinkles when he laughs, the deliberate way he looks at his hands when he’s being serious. He likes that he has to look up at Tim to meet his eyes. On the phone with Tim, he sometimes feels lost.

\--

Tim has poor understanding of time zones. When Landon wakes up, most mornings, his phone tells him he has a missed call from Tim. Usually, that’s all - no message, no text. So Landon calls him back, except now Tim’s at practice or something. Landon leaves a brief message, “Dude, you called but I was asleep. What’s up?”

Landon’s driving to the supermarket when Tim finally calls him back. Landon picks up without a second thought.

“What time is it there?” Tim asks, like this is his reason for calling.

“12:41,” Landon says. “Do I need to buy you a special clock or something?” Maybe he will, and a little plaque that says “Los Angeles” to put under it, too. Like the UN. He smiles to himself.

“Yeah, that’d be great, Landon,” Tim says, as sarcastic as possible. “Anyway, Landon-” Tim continues, but Landon hears sirens behind him. He looks in his rear-view mirror and sees a cop car.

“Fuck, hold on Tim,” he says, and pulls over to the side of the road, putting the phone down.

The cop pulls over behind him, and walks up to the window of Landon’s car. Landon rolls the window down. “Is there a problem, officer?”

The officer looks down at him, already pulling out a ticket. “You realize talking on your cell phone while driving is illegal in California, Mr.-” He stops. “Are you Landon Donovan?”

Landon almost starts laughing. “Yeah, yeah I am.”

The officer grins. “You were incredible in World Cup, man. I don’t usually watch soccer, but you were great.”

“Thanks so much,” Landon says, amused.

“Tell you what,” the officer says, “if you give me an autograph, we can forget about the ticket.”

“Sounds good to me.” Landon borrows the officer’s pen and signs two pieces of paper, one for the officer and one for his nephew. After the officer heads back to his car, Landon picks up the phone again.

“Did you hear that?” he asks Tim, laughing. “Apparently I’m famous.”

“I heard you commit bribery,” Tim says, but he’s laughing too. “Anyway, Landon, how would you feel about coming back to Everton? For good this time.”

Landon leans back in the seat, grinning at the roof of his car. “You’re kidding, man. You’re kidding.”

“Would I joke about this?”

The sun beats down mercilessly, and Landon turns up his air conditioning, already imaging muddy pitches, packed stadiums, Tim’s smile. “So something good comes out of World Cup after all?”

Tim laughs. “Sounds like it. See you soon,” he says, and hangs up.

“See you soon,” Landon echoes to nobody, still grinning.

\--

“Hi, you’ve reached Tim Howard. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, thanks.”

Landon sits down on his bed. He rests his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hand, and takes a deep breath, then another one. Tim’s answering machine beeps.

“Hey Tim, it’s me. Uh, sorry I called so late,” Landon pauses. “Call me back as soon as you get this, ok? Don’t worry about waking me up or whatever; I, um, I kinda need to talk to you.” He hangs up and slumps backwards against the mattress.

Landon falls asleep waiting, the volume on his phone turned all the way up. But it’s the sun that wakes him up. He grabs his phone and walks to the window, another perfect day, the city a smear of smog on the horizon. No new messages.

Tim calls during his second cup of coffee.

“You sounded pretty freaked out there,” he says, when Landon answers. “Everything ok?”

Landon spins his coffee cup on the table. “The transfer’s not going through,” he says.

Tim doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “That sucks. But there’s always January, right?” Landon hears music and voices in the background, muffled. He wonders if Tim’s calling him from the locker room, which temporary addition to Everton has his old locker now, and if Tim stops and talks to them after practice, still wet from his shower.

“There isn’t. They, the commissioner and Bruce and people, they’ve decided I should stay in the US. ‘Raise the profile of the league’ and shit.”

“Can’t you say anything?” Landon hears a sound like a door shutting, and then silence. Maybe Tim’s stepped outside. Maybe he wants privacy for this. Landon shuts his eyes, trying to remember the players’ parking lot. He can’t.

“Because they care so much about what I want. It isn’t happening, Tim. I’m not going anywhere.” His voice is louder, rougher, than he means it to be.

“Fuck,” Tim says.

Landon laughs, a little shakily. “Yeah, pretty much.”

\--

Landon doesn’t ration time until the next time he’s going to see the team, count down the days or anything like that. He focuses on his league games, tries not to let his mind be anywhere else. On the road, he calls Tim from a string of indistinguishable hotel rooms - locks the door and dials. He paces in front of the window, switching his phone from hand to hand.

Tim’s back has been bothering him in the morning. The weather in Liverpool is wet (“big fucking surprise”). Landon tells Tim San Jose hasn’t improved since the last time he was there.

“See you in New Jersey,” Tim says before he hangs up. It sounds like a promise.

\--

They play terribly against Brazil, but the crowd doesn’t care. It’s humid, and nothing is easy - not running, not breathing. Tim gets taken out at the half.

Landon sits next to Tim on the bus ride back to the hotel. Tim lets Landon take the window seat. His breath fogs up the dirty glass of the window. It's nothing like South Africa, but Landon's reminded of it anyway, by the press of Tim's thigh against his. Tim doesn't say anything during the bus ride, but when they get off the bus at the hotel Landon's phone buzzes in his pocket. It's a text from Tim: Meet in my room in 5. Landon doesn't text him back, just goes.

Tim is lying on the bed, looking at the ceiling. Landon locks the door and sits down next to Tim, leaning his back against the wall. Tim has an arm thrown over his eyes.

“We are not talking about the game,” Tim says, “just to be clear.”

“Fine with me,” Landon says. He bites the inside of his lip. “Enjoying your stay in New Jersey?”

“So much I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Tim says, moving his arm and turning to look at Landon. He looks like he hasn’t shaved in a day or two. He has a lop-sided smile, and his eyes are very green. “You?”

“Same,” Landon says. He moves his hand so the backs of his fingers are brushing against Tim’s forearm.

“What a coincidence,” Tim says, pushing himself up into a sitting position. Landon looks down at his hand, then up at Tim. There are wrinkles around the corners of his eyes and mouth. Tim reaches out and Landon meets him halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> The US national team was eliminated from the World Cup in the round of 16, by Ghana. Landon Donovan gave some incredibly emo post-match interviews.
> 
> Donovan was on loan to Everton last winter, where he played with Tim Howard. He wanted to stay, but the Galaxy called him back for the MLS season. Everton were interested in buying Donovan after the World Cup, and he was interested in going back to Everton. The transfer fell through. The commissioner of the MLS said that the MLS would resist selling Donovan for any price; they want him to remain in the US for the rest of his career to raise the profile of MLS.
> 
> The US lost its first post-World Cup match 2 - 0 to Brazil.  
> Thanks to ashirbaad for the beta.


End file.
